Measuring devices—also denoted as measuring instruments or measuring apparatus—are used to determine geometric or physical quantities. It is essential that the parameter to be measured by the measuring device may not be distorted by its operation. For this reason, it must be ensured in terms of the measurement quality that noise or interference signals are avoided as possible.
The present invention particularly relates to such measuring devices which are operated in a RF-sensitive environment or which are designed to measure RF sensitive parameters. Such RF-sensitive measuring devices for measuring radio-frequency (RF) signals are, for example, described in DE 38 25 160 C2.
Modern measuring devices are typically controlled by microprocessors which operate using appropriate system software. Usually, this system software must be updated or upgraded from time to time. Common reasons for updating the software include fixing bugs or adding features to the device. The update or upgrade should preferably take place during operation of the measuring device or at least without dismounting the measuring device specially for the update. For the process of updating, there are several options available:
The most convenient way of updating is performed by connecting the measuring device via a specially designated wireless or wired web interface and by downloading the data that are required. Frequently, such a web interface is not available, for example, in order to prevent infection of the measuring device with malware, spam data, viruses, etc. In the case of an RF sensitive environment, any radio operation should be avoided, so that an update by means of a wireless web interface is ruled out.
For this reason, modern RF-sensitive measuring devices that are operated in an RF-sensitive environment, are either updated by removing the RF-sensitive device from the RF-sensitive environment and then perform the update in another non-RF-sensitive environment. This is very time-consuming and especially not always practical, if for example the installation and consequently de-installation of the measuring devices is very complex. Alternatively, it would also be conceivable that the updated system software is downloaded from the Internet by means of a computer that is set up in a non-RF-sensitive environment. This updated system software is then stored on a data carrier (e.g. USB stick, CD, etc.) and then uploaded from there to the measuring devices. However, this is also not much convenient and additionally time-consuming.
Consequently, there is a need to find a more comfortable, but nevertheless failsafe possibility for the updating of RF sensitive measuring devices.